Saturday, September 21, 2013

Michael Fassbender Found Human Side To 12 Years A Slave Character

Michael Fassbender says he tried to find the 'human being' in his 12 Years A Slave character.

12 Years A Slave has been receiving critical acclaim on the festival circuit as Steve McQueen is back in the director's chair.

Fassbender takes on the role of evil slave owner Edwin Epps, and the actor says he tried to look past his villainous nature.

Speaking to Flicks and Bits the actor said: "He's a human being, so I approached him with a very human touch," he recalled. "I tried to find his voice first. I worked with a lot of different tapes and our dialect coach helped me out a lot."

"It was about finding the human being in [my character] Epps, because obviously what he does is pretty terrible, but... I don't know, there's something in there where I feel a little sorry for him.

"He's a victim of the time as well, in a way. He's in love with [slave] Patsey (Lupita Nyong'o) and he can't deal with it, he thinks, 'How can I be in love with a slave?'

"So he sets about suppressing her and beating her to try to beat it out of himself. So I thought that there was a really amazing humanity in that alone.